November 7, 18C5. ] 



JOUBNAL OF HOETICULTURE AND COTTAGE GABDENER. 



381 



by liis stntinR liisi exporience as to Cattley's Guava. Is it 

 equal in quality to the ordinary Guava? — G. S. 



Feei.ino much interested in tropical fruit culture, I am glad 

 to see an article on the subject. From what your c(irreKpon- 

 dent " J. H." states last week we might imagine that fruiting 

 the Mangosteen was an annual circumstance. I was not aware 

 that it had been fruited more than once in this country, and 

 that once at Sion House, and from the a|ipearance of the 

 plants and general report I considered it rather a dirticult sub- 

 ject to manage. I should be obliged by being informed where 

 plants can be obtained ; also, if your correspondent found it 

 necessary to employ bottom heat, and to what amount. — T. N. 



[I can assure " T. N.," in answer to his letter, that it is quite 

 a mistaken idea to suppose the Mangosteen cannot be reared 

 in England without great difficulty. I have seen it growing at 

 one or two places, and many years ago I saw a tree at AUestree, 

 near Derby, covered with blossom, and which aftcnvards, I be- 

 lieve, bore some fruit. The chief point seems to be procuring a 

 flimd lariel;/, as many sorts, almost the same in appearance, 

 will neither flower nor fruit in England. I procured my trees 

 direct from Madi-as (liy far the best way), and although I have 

 not now one of ray own, I believe I can obtain a plant for 

 " T. N." if he requires it. 



The tree at Sion House, to which " T. N." alludes, I only 

 saw once, and then it was not in flower, but it appeared to me 

 remaikably like Garcinia Mangostana celebica, a sort which will 

 not fruit in England. 



I obtained fruit for three successive years (1S59-G0-61) from 

 one small tree, and I am certain that with good management 

 the tree would bear annually. 



I forgot to mention in my article on the subject, that while 

 growing, the Mangosteen should have a brisk bottom heat of 

 Irom 90° to 100=.— J. H.] 



DEATH OF DR. LINDLEY. 



In rapid succession to that of Sir "William Jackson Hooker, 

 we have now to announce the death of Dr. Lindley, which 

 occurred at his house, Acton Green, on the morning of Wed- 

 nesday last, the 1st of November. For a considerable time 

 past Dr. Lindley has been wholly incapacitated from follow- 

 ing his ordinary pursuits, or of engaging in any occupation 

 that requii-ed mental application. For some years he had been 

 afflicted with a gradual softening of the brain, and this disease 

 had made so much jirogress that at the time of his death, 

 which resulted in apoplexy, he had become, so to speak-, dead 

 to the world. And thus expired an intellect much above the 

 common order, a sacrifice to its own imtiring and unceasing 

 toil. 



John Lindley was born February 5th, 1799, at Catton, near 

 Norwich, which may now be styled the City of Botanists, for 

 there were born three of England's greatest botanists — Sir 

 James Edward Smith, Sir William Jackson Hooker, and Dr. 

 John Lindley. His father was a nurseryman, but being im- 

 successful in business, he subsequently undertook the direction 

 of the Bristol Nurseries of Miller & Sweet, at that time one 

 of the most extensive and prosperous establishments in the 

 kingdom. He was the author of a very useful work, which was 

 edited by his son, entitled " A Guide to the Orchard and 

 Kitchen Garden," but it appeared at a time when the present 

 taste for garden literatm'e was as yet undeveloped, and when 

 what is now called gardening was confined more to the 

 establishments of the higher classes, who were themselves 

 not gardeners, and consequently that excellent work never met 

 with the encouragement it merited, and never reached a 

 second edition. Trained as young Lindley necessarily was 

 among plants and flowers, and being smrounded by so many 

 botanical associations and associates, it is not to be wondered 

 at that an intellect like his should soar above and beyond the 

 ordinary ideas of a nurseryman, and see something in the 

 objects with which he was smroimded of greater interest than 

 that which was connected with their commercial value. We find, 

 therefore, that instead of being a nurseryman he was bent on 

 becoming a botanist, for so early as 1819 he published a trans- 

 lation of lUchard's ■' Analyse des Fruits : " and in his twenty- 

 first year he produced his " Kosarum Monographia," the pre- 

 paration of which must have occupisl him a long time pre- 

 ■viously, for the excellent plates are all fiom his own drawings, 

 and the study of the subject must necessarily have engaged his 



attention at a period when he was yet a mere youth. In the 

 following year Mr. Lindley published " Digitalium Monogra- 

 pljia," ami about this time ho became garden clerk at the Ghig- 

 wick Garden of tlio Horticultural Society, which had then been 

 newly formed ; and in this capacity he remained till the retire- 

 ment of Mr. Sabine in ISHO, when >[r. Bentharn was chosen 

 Secretary and Mr. Lindley was ajipointed the Assistant Secre- 

 tary. In this capacity lie remained till his retirement in 1858 ; 

 and, as a recognition of his long services to the Society he was 

 chosen secretary — an honoraij appointment he retained till 

 18(13. About the time ho became connected with the Horticul- 

 tural Society, ho was engaged by the late Mr. Loudon in the com- 

 pilation of the " Encyclopadia of Plants," which occupied him 

 for a period of seven years, and which was completed in l.S'29. 



During the time he acted as Assistant Secretary to the Hor- 

 ticultural Society he held several otlier appointments. In 1826 

 he succeeded Mr. Bellenden Ker as Editor of the " Botanical 

 Register," established by Sydenliam Edwards in 1815 ; and 

 the botanical attainments he exhibited in the management of 

 this and the execution of his other works recouuuc-uded him 

 to the botanical eliair of University College, London, where, in 

 the end of April, 1829, he delivered his introductory lecture as 

 Professor of Botany in that institution. This appointment he 

 held for twenty-nine years ; and it has been remarked by one 

 of his old pupils, " I can truly say, as a lecturer he was one of 

 the best teachers I ever heard. Free and conversational in his 

 manner, his matter was excellent and methodically arranged. 

 I entered his class with little knowledge of, and less liking for, 

 botany, and left it, having taken his gold medal at University 

 College, having amongst mj- competitors Dr. W. B. Carpenter, 

 Dr. Lankester, Dr. Jenner, &c," and I maintained the supe- 

 riority of his teaching by taking the silver botanical medal of 

 the Apothecaries' Company open to the competition of all the 

 students in England. 



In his introductoiy lecture he announced his intention of 

 teaching the natural system of botany, at that time impopular 

 among those who had been educated in the Linnaan school : 

 to this he rigidly adhered. We question, however, whether so 

 much of the credit usually attributed to Dr. Lindley as the 

 fosterer of the natural system in this counti-y is not unduly 

 rendered. He encouraged the study of it in preference to 

 that of the Linn;ean, and in all his works on the subject he 

 adhered to that system. Still it cannot be forgotten that, not 

 content with the natural systems which Jussieu and De Candolle 

 originated, he was always propounding some theory of his own, 

 w^hich was never fixed, but which at uncertain intervals was 

 doomed to be supplanted by another idea that seemed to find 

 gieater favour in the mind of the author. Students who were 

 willing to adopt the natural system were thus, by Dr. Lindley's 

 teaching, kept in a state of constant uncertainty. In his 

 " Synojisis of the British Flora," published in 1829, he there 

 adopts the an-angem&it of De CandoUe, a system which has 

 received imiversal acceptance from evei-y botanist in this 

 coxintry and America ; but iu 1830 appeared his first elementary 

 work on the natural system, entitled '■ An Introduction to the 

 Natiural System of Botany." Instead of following the systems 

 of Jussieu or De Candolle, he adopted that of the latter, 

 ignoring the apetalous classes of both, and throwing them in 

 with the polypetalous class. This, as a consequence, destroyed 

 any ideas of sequence, or even of arrangement, that may have 

 been formed by the student who had just mastei-ed either of 

 the other systems, and confused those of others who were but 

 on the threshold of the science. 



In 1833 Dr. Lindley published his " ITixus Plantarum," in 

 which he restored the apetalous group, which three years pre- 

 viously he abolished, and ignored altogether the hypogynous and 

 perigynous structures, which fonn such distinct charac ers in the 

 other systems; retaining only the epigj-nous, which he made to 

 represent a subordinate section, and adopting th'j character of 

 the albumen for the primary divisions. In this ease the affinities 

 and sequence of the orders were again entirely disturbed. Three 

 years later appeared the second edition of " A Natural System of 

 Botany," in wliich the arrangement set forth in the "Ni.xus" 

 was generally adhered to, hut differed in some of the details, 

 and this fonu he introduced in the subject " Botany," published 

 by the Society for the Diflusion of Useful Knowledge in 1838, 

 and which was intended as a twok of instruction fur the 

 massi-S ; but there is not i:ven a reference in it to the system of 

 De Candulle, which at the time was being taught by Hooker 

 in Glasgoiv, Graham in Edinburgh, and Henslow iu Cambridge, 

 and which is that now geutraEy ai:t:t;;ited and taught in every 

 institution of the countrv. 



